Philadelphia
Henry Altemus Company
Copyright, 1909, by
Howard E. Altemus.
#THE BOOK OF
FRIENDSHIP#
THE BOOK OF
FRIENDSHIP
When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved
an intellectual trick,--no more. They eat your service like apples, and
leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all
the time.
--Emerson.
So, if I live or die to serve my friend,
’Tis for my love,--’tis for my friend alone,
And not for any rate that friendship bears
In heaven or on earth.
--George Eliot
Old friends are the only ones whose hold is upon our inmost being;
others but half replace them.
--Voltaire
True friends appear less mov’d than counterfeit.
--Horace
It is sublime to feel and say of another, I need never meet, or speak,
or write to him; we need not reënforce ourselves, or send tokens of
remembrance; I rely on him as on myself; if he did thus and thus, I
know it was right.
--Emerson
A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield
implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no other law but
kindness.
--Henry D. Thoreau
Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or
accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.
The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern
the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if
they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones never.
--Landor
Friendship’s the wine of life.
--Young
Give me the avow’d, the erect, the manly foe;
Bold I can meet--perhaps may turn his blow;
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh! save me from the candid friend.
--George Canning
How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends,
that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.
--Henry D. Thoreau
Common friendships will admit of division; one may love the beauty of
this, the good humor of that person, the liberality of a third, the
paternal affection of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and so
on. But this friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules
and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.
--Montaigne
Friendship is a sheltering tree.
--Coleridge
We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and
inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this
preference that alone constitutes true and perfect friendship.
--La Rochefoucauld
Friendships begin with liking or gratitude.
--George Eliot
In friendship I early was taught to believe.
--Byron
In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow
Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,
Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee,
That there’s no living with thee, or without thee.
--Addison
Friendship of itself a holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
--Dryden
Love and friendship exclude one another.
--La Bruyère
Friendship is a severe sentiment, solidly seated, since it rests
upon all that is highest in us, the purely intellectual part of us.
What happiness to be able to say all that one feels to someone who
comprehends one to the very end and not only up to a certain point,
to someone who completes one’s thought with the same word that was on
one’s lips, someone the reply of whom starts from one a torrent of
conceptions, a flood of ideas!
--Pierre Loti
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
--Cowper
Judge before friendship, then confide till death.
--Young
Have no friend not equal to yourself.
--Confucius
Separate thyself from thine enemies, and take heed of thy friends. A
faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found such an
one hath found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend,
and his excellency is invaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of
life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him.
--The Book of Ecclesiasticus
Thou may’st be sure that he that will, in private, tell thee of thy
faults, is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike, and doth hazard
thy hatred; there are few men that can endure it, every man for the
most part delighting in self-praise, which is one of the most universal
follies that bewitcheth mankind.
--Sir Walter Raleigh
Once let friendship be given that is born of God, nor time nor
circumstance can change it to a lessening; it must be mutual growth,
increasing trust, widening faith, enduring patience, forgiving love,
unselfish ambition, and an affection built before the Throne, which
will bear the test of time and trial.
--Allan Throckmorton
Friendship is a field which one sows.
--Restif de la Brétonne
A man that is fit to make a friend of must have conduct to manage the
engagement, and resolution to maintain it. He must use freedom without
roughness, and oblige without design. Cowardice will betray friendship,
and covetousness will starve it. Folly will be nauseous, passion is apt
to ruffle, and pride will fly out into contumely and neglect.
--Jeremy Collier
Some look to friendship for absolute exemption from criticism, and for
a mutual admiration without limit or conditions. Others mistake it for
the right of excessive criticism, in season and out of season.
--John Morley
Of what use is the friendliest disposition even, if there are no hours
given to Friendship, if it is forever postponed to unimportant duties
and relations?
--Henry D. Thoreau
What is loving--that verb (_amare_) wherefrom the very name of
friendship (_amicitia_) is derived--but wishing one to enjoy the best
possible good fortune, even if none of it accrues to one’s self?
--Cicero
Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not
sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely,
as some say, but in melody.
--Henry D. Thoreau
Think of the importance of Friendship in the education of men. It will
make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint.
It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with
the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.
--Henry D. Thoreau
The admirer is never stupid in the eyes of the admired.
--Helvetius
One of the surest evidences of friendship that one individual can
display to another is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can
excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratitude, and
amending the error.
--Bulwer-Lytton
We never exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on
that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.
--Henry D. Thoreau
If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to
credit him; for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will
not abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who, being
turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach. Again, some
friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of
thine affliction.
--The Book of Ecclesiasticus
Friendship is a pact where one balances faults and qualities. One can
judge a friend, take account of what is good, neglect what is evil, and
appreciate exactly his value, in abandoning one’s self to an intimate,
profound and charming sympathy.
--Guy de Maupassant
Everyone can have a friend
Who himself knows how to be a friend.
--Old Saying
We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies,--neighbors
are kind enough for that,--but to do the like office to our spirits.
For this few are rich enough, however well disposed they may be.
--Henry D. Thoreau
Friendship closes its eye, rather than see the moon eclipst; while
malice denies that it is ever at the full.
--J. C. and A. W. Hare
Son, if the lintels of thy house are lofty, and thy friend be sick, say
not: What shall I send to him? Go thou rather on foot, and see him with
thy eyes; for that is better for him than a thousand talents of gold or
Silver.
--Arabian Legend
We must love our friends as true amateurs love paintings: they have
their eyes perpetually fixed upon the fine qualities, and see no others.
--Mme. d’Epinay
Nothing is so difficult as to help a Friend in matters which do not
require the aid of Friendship, but only a cheap and trivial service, if
your Friendship wants the basis of a thorough practical acquaintance.
--Henry D. Thoreau
Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn.
--Addison
Fast as the rolling seasons bring
The hour of fate to those we love,
Each pearl that leaves the broken string
Is set in Friendship’s crown above.
As narrower grows the earthly chain,
The circle widens in the sky;
These are our treasures that remain,
But those are stars that beam on high.
--O. W. Holmes
There is nothing more becoming any wise man, than to make choice
of friends, for by them thou shalt be judged as thou art; let them
therefore be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for
gain; but make election rather of thy betters, than thy inferiors.
--Sir Walter Raleigh
True friendship is like sound health: the value of it is seldom known
until it be lost.
--C. C. Colton
A woman’s friendship borders more closely on love than man’s. Men
affect each other in the reflection of noble or friendly acts; whilst
women ask fewer proofs and more signs and expressions of attachment.
--Coleridge
Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
--Franklin
A true friend to a man is a friend to all his friends.
--Wycherley
Half a word from your friend says more to you than many phrases, for
you are accustomed to think with him. You comprehend all the sentiments
which animate him, and he knows it. You are two intelligences which add
to and complement each other.
--Pierre Loti
Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet’ner of life! and solder of society!
--Robert Blair
Friendship is first, Friendship last. But it is equally impossible to
forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say
farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company.
--Henry D. Thoreau
In friendship we see the faults which may be prejudicial to our
friends. In love we see no faults, but those by which we ourselves
suffer.
--La Bruyère
Come back! ye friendships long departed!
That like o’erflowing streamlets started,
And now are dwindled one by one,
To stony channels in the sun!
Come back, ye friends whose lives are ended,
Come back, with all that light attended,
Which seemed to darken and decay
When ye arose and went away.
--Longfellow
Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us except the
very thing we wish them to do. There is one thing in particular they
are always disposed to give us, and which we are as unwilling to take,
namely, advice.
--Hazlitt
There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and
indeed friendship itself is only a part of virtue.
--Pope
There are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are
injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere,
and friendship with the man of observation: these are advantageous.
Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the
insinuatingly soft, and friendship with the glib of tongue: these are
injurious.
--Confucius
A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows;
One should our interests and our passions be,
My friend must hate the man that injures me.
--Homer (Pope’s Tr.)
My friend is that one whom I can associate with my choicest thought.
--Henry D. Thoreau
Go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.
--The Book of Proverbs
Veritable friends enjoy, in moral order, the perfection of scent that
dogs do; they thus divine the chagrins of their comrades; they see the
causes and concern themselves with them.
--Balzac